One Step into Darkness
by Auster
Summary: AU What is he doing, this obscure apparition of the night? And, more to the point, what is he? - Yuugi stands on the threshold of the night, waiting for something to save him. Puzzleshipping YYxY


**AN: **Hey guys! Well at least I managed to updated like I promised today, with no evil mishaps and no FF playing up. This was the oneshot I wanted up a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't quite make it. Hell, it barely made it at all, it fought with me for nearly the entire second half, you can probably tell. Anyway, this is a weird one this is, but I do rather like it (probably _because_ its so weird), so I hope you do too!

Summery: AU 'What is he doing, this obscure apparition of the night? And, more to the point, _what is he?_' Yuugi stands on the threshold of the night, waiting for something to save him. Puzzleshipping YYxY

**One Step into Darkness**

He stands by the edge of the street, looks left, right. There are no cars to be seen, the sound of an engine does not reach his straining ears over the chilled winds of a bleak November night, but he chooses not to cross. Instead he stands, a figure cut from some old Japanese film, as if waiting for some invisible gap in an imaginary crowd to part for him.

Clouds the shape of malformed eyes dot the sky spasmodically, as if some modern painter of the heavens has flicked his paintbrush across his canvas of the sky and called it art, as if the angels and spirits have spat out their used chewing gum and the tread of a thousand weightless feet has crushed the tasteless blotches into the floor of the atmosphere, a greater mirror of the city's pavements below.

In the wind, the golden chimes that interweave with his hair, the ornaments of palace geishas and princesses' trinkets, sound out with silver beauty. The night, quiet in its cold intensity, calms him, slows the voices that screech like hungry ally cats in his mind.

What is he doing, this obscure apparition of the night? And, more to the point, what is he?

The traffic light flickers amber above his head (be careful if you cross), Yuugi blinks and sighs. If the desire so hit him, he could make the sun rise, the wind die, water lilies blossom in the cracks of brickwork, cut down the dying sakura tree on the next turn and regenerate it so that petals floated to the ground even as the cracking, dismembered branches of the old tree settled on the pavement. But he is happy as he is, stood stoically in this cold night.

He knows what he was, and what he was is not much different to what he is now, yet he cannot define this thing he has become which is almost like what he was, but not quite.

Yuugi is glad when a car drives past, momentarily lighting up the night, the painted stripes on the road, the sides of buildings that flank the street. The light passes through him, the man in the drivers' seat does not see him. He follows the retreating car with his eyes, the red lights that indicate a decrease in speed trail like crimson eels in brackish water.

The night never used to be his place, exactly, he used to prefer the day. But now he is not sure over which domain he should stand, since he is not what he used to be, all those years ago. He feels most at home now at dawn, and at twilight, the times of intermission, of indecision. His sisters used to stand over dawn and dusk, but no one has seen them in decades, no one knows who should stand over what, these days, other than, perhaps, the humans. The humans seem to have replaced them, now, with each other, with themselves.

It is impossible to restore belief in something that has been proven not to exist, after all. Something that _will not_ prove itself.

He is an empty shadow no matter the time or season, he, who once shone as the sun, now walks with mortals on the streets. Mortals who do not know who (_what_) it is they brush out of the way when he stands still too long.

He is changed. And though he knows not how, he does know _why_.

_Why_ approaches him now, even before he heard the speeding footfalls Yuugi sensed him, felt the unfathomable drumming organ inside his chest respond to something his mind has no name for. The human is running. Yuugi turns his head to great him, but stops when he sees the desperate expression on the human's face as he skids to a halt, gulping in air like a drowning catfish.

And because it looks like the human wants to say something, Yuugi asks, "Yami?"

It is several more seconds before Yami can reply, forgoing the usual greeting bow in a way not uncharacteristic of him, "Found you."

Yuugi wonders what he means, humans confuse him, "Found me? I was not hiding."

Finally Yami has himself under control, he glances only briefly at Yuugi, then fixes his gaze on a point just by his right elbow, "It's past four o'clock in the morning, Yuugi."

Yuugi is quiet; he does not know what reply Yami expects of him. So instead he stands, observing those fascinating little movements, those small wastes of energy, that all humans display, each one quirky and unique to the one human that displays them. Yami fascinates him. Like no other human he has known (though, admittedly, he has not _known_ many). What is it about him that makes him stand apart Yuugi no longer has the power to define, but he suspects it has something to do with that mutable human spirit which seems, in Yami, to hold a certain fire that his skin can barely contain.

Finally, Yuugi realises that Yami seems to be angry, so he asks, "Is there something wrong?"

Yami looks up at Yuugi, then, and takes more careful note of the curving markings that paint his skin in an elegant kind of purplish-red ink, his form is art of the finest old-Japanese masters, he looks as if they took their brushes and created him using all the experience and love born from centuries worth of devotion, painting him onto, _into_, the parchment of the earth in playful, watery colours that trick and bewitch the eye. He wants to remember everything with his imperfect human memory, determined that he will not let Yuugi's image become blurred in his mind as the years pass, until he looks like an old brush painting left out in the rain, his colours and features melting into obscurity.

He bites his lip to stop his eyes from stinging too much.

"Promise me something."

Yuugi looks confused, "I will promise anything, if it is still within my power to keep it."

"Do not… Never forget me?"

A soft smile touches the increase in confusion, "While the power to retain perfect memory often alludes me at this point, I can affix certain memories that will forever remain. Yes, this I will promise you. But you seem mislead, why would I forget you?"

"You will be leaving won't you?"

"Everyone must leave somewhere at some time, you must be more specific."

Yami wants to laugh at this familiar dance, it appears mortals and immortals will never manage to remain on the same page for very long, "You're leaving here, now, aren't you? This is why you're stood here. You are leaving us."

Yuugi tilts his head, ink markings shift elegantly over the presence of a light frown, "I was not made aware of my imminent departure. Are you, perhaps, privy to information I am not? Has my cousin visited you?"

Yami shakes his head, determined to keep Yuugi's wandering mind on track by teasing out the information he wants from the roundabout answer, "I haven't met anyone, I was assuming. Your actions made it seem like you were leaving."

Yuugi inclines his head, large eyes bright as they scrutinise Yami's expressions, "In that case, I extend my apologies, I had not intended to frighten you."

"I wasn't scared."

"No."

_Then why were you running?_

Leaves, dead and dry, scratch gently over the solid ground when a breeze blows by. It cannot quite pick them up, letting them, instead, be dragged along. The sound is unexpectedly loud and it makes Yami jump.

"The city is very quiet tonight."

"I find," says Yuugi, "that this time in the morning is the most peaceful. Just before the sun rises. A time of solace, and of silence. It is a good time for thought."

"Or for sleep," Yami quips, he is tired and has to be up in the morning.

Yuugi smiles, "Yes, that too."

Yami feels some of his frustration melt away when Yuugi smiles, feels it unfurl from him like a frayed ribbon and blow away with the wind. The ribbon that half-rests, half-floats around Yuugi's shoulders is a shawl of sorts and nearly two hands wide, framing him in amethyst silk, it folds itself under Yuugi's arms and down them, it encircles, but does not restrict, and trails from his wrists like long strands of flowing seaweed.

Yuugi does not really look like Yami would have expected him too. He supposed he would have expected something grand, something huge and magnificent, imposing and intimidating. Yuugi is not like this. He is small and quiet, beautiful and gentle. Although, Yami thinks, he is a little intimidating, simply through the very nature of his being, the very nature of his frequent silence. He would like to touch him like he did when he thought Yuugi was human, but now he is too intimidated to do so. There is a wall between them, though he knows neither of them put it there.

From behind he hears the sound of footsteps and voices, they both turn to look, and see a small group of men and women half-walking, half-stumbling down the street. A group coming back from a dinner party that contained one too many glasses of wine, he thinks, judging by their clothes. Judging by the hot puffs of white breath issuing from their mouths, he can almost see the red tint of some expensive red wine staining the moist breaths of one woman, a blood mist, potent, petulant.

Yami watches them pass. They stumble onwards, jacket tails bat at the night air, and fall down the next street. The sound of their voices is lost through distance.

"They cannot see you."

"No."

"You have hidden yourself."

"Yes."

"Could you hide yourself from me?"

"Not anymore."

Yami is not sure why this knowledge fills him with satisfaction. Fingers chilled, he pushes them into the pockets of his jeans, the picture of suspicious nonchalance, stood apparently alone talking to a traffic light that keeps flashing amber. It reminds him of when he first saw Yuugi, back when all he saw was a small human teenager like the rest of the world, stood by a set of crossroads on the other side of the city, almost the mirror of this one. It had been noontime, and the crowd had to jostle past him, he had been stood so still. The traffic had been suffering some light chaos. The lights had been stuck on amber then, too.

Another car drives past, slower this time, the driver looks at Yami curiously, as if she thinks the young man should be on drugs and wants to see what he'll do next. Yami waits until its engine fades away.

"Can you make yourself visible?"

Yuugi gives him a look of bemusement, "Yes, or you would never have seen me at all."

Yami smiles at the misunderstanding, "No, I meant could you become visible now? It's just, I look like I'm talking to myself."

"The best conversations can be those you have with yourself," Yuugi says, but nods anyway. There is a slight sound that is not quite a sound but more of a_ feeling_, time and reality seem to jitter, like a minuscule skip in a CD, that he, if he had not known what to look for, would have missed. But he felt it, and knows that the rest of the world can now see the teenage boy Yuugi appears to be in most human's eyes, even if, in Yami's eyes, nothing changes.

"Thanks."

Yuugi inclines his head, turns back to the road. At night, the tarmac surface appears to be slow moving tar, a black canal devoid of ripples. The canals crisscross the city, endless connecting waterways, endless roads for the dead that reside below the black surface.

"Roads have always fascinated me," Yuugi says suddenly, "I have always thought that if I followed my brother to the underworld, I would find rivers and roads much the same to these, where spirits wander in the darkness. I wonder, if I stepped forward now, would I be taking one step into darkness."

And although Yuugi shows no inclination to move, Yami finds himself crossing the gap between them to stop him. He catches himself before he can do anything foolish, and hovers awkwardly as Yuugi blinks at him.

He coughs.

"Are you all right?" Yuugi asks, his eyes have widened, he has misunderstood the function of clearing one's throat to cover embarrassment. He reaches out, places a concerned hand on Yami's shoulder. Yami can feel precious little weight from the touch, but can feel the extraordinary warmth of it all the same. Yami has often wondered if Yuugi is completely weightless, as if he is a ghost, a white shadow. But a warm one, a shadow born from sunlight, rather than the lack of it.

"I'm fine."

Yuugi does not believe him. His gaze flickers over Yami's face, traces the curves, the exquisite lines of his jaw, his ears, the almond eyes, the thin, dusky lips like powdered garnet. He feels that strange pressure in his heart again; he wishes he could understand it.

"You are cold," he says at last, knowing it must be true and annoyed at himself for not realising sooner.

Yami shrugs, "A little."

Yuugi just looks at him, "Do not lie."

"I'm not –"

But his words are cut from him, scissors through paper, through sound, as Yuugi leans forward and presses his hot lips against his check, softly on the corner of his mouth. It is chaste and sweet and purposeful. Yami feels heat blossom there and knows it is not simply the heat of embarrassment, or desire, it is an unnatural and perfectly natural warmth that spreads like fast growing ivy within him, around him, until he is filled with warmth.

He breathes in, long and deep, savouring the sudden sensation, the retreat of the chill that had settled unpleasantly in his skin, and closes his eyes briefly. Yuugi pulls away and Yami instantly misses the presence of his lips, the touch of his hand. He resists the urge to reach out, clenches his hands and shoves them back into his pockets.

Yuugi is still looking at him. Yami shifts his weight; the gentle silence makes him restless.

"Maybe we should move on?"

Yami smiles at Yuugi's half-concerned question; finally he can do what he came here to do and bring him home. He knows Yuugi calls the whole of Japan his home, that he has roamed the country for hundreds of years without ever needing a home in the sense that humans would expect, but Yami's conscience rebels at the idea of leaving him alone on the streets, letting him stay outside on cold dark nights. He demands that Yuugi stays with him, all the while knowing that Yuugi is doing little more than humouring him by consenting to live his way.

He fears that one day he will wake, and Yuugi will have wandered off somewhere, that the wind will take him elsewhere, that he will not return.

Yami nods, "Yes, please."

Yami moves his arm in a gesture that was meant to simply welcome or encourage Yuugi to walk with him, but Yuugi, perhaps misunderstanding, or perhaps feeling mischievous, takes his arm by the elbow and holds it. He curls one arm around Yami's and rests the other on the human's bicep and stands there expectantly, comfortable, as if waiting to be escorted. A lady to a party. A bride down the isle.

Yami swallows and wonders if Yuugi has watched one too many western films.

He consents however, and allows a little shy smile to pass the embarrassment. They walk; Yami retraces the steps he took in his search. With the heat radiating from Yuugi's magic, his physical contact, Yami falls into light contemplation. Remembers the two times, in their slow conversation, that Yuugi alluded to family. He has never heard Yuugi mention an existing family before.

"You have a cousin? A brother?"

"Many," Yuugi says, "Sisters, too. All the gods are related, just not quite in the same way humans are."

"Have I ever met them?" You never knew, after all, just because he could see Yuugi didn't mean he could see the rest.

"You would know if you had, now that you can See," Yuugi replies, answering Yami's silent thought, "Though perhaps you would miss two of my sisters."

"Why?"

"No one has seen them in a long time. They are birds now, I think."

"Oh," Yami tries to figure out if this is normal or not to divinity, but cannot.

They keep walking; pass a group of girls, a train station, a park. At the park they slow, stop, Yuugi stares into the open gates, the swallowing darkness, the cold, naked trees flanking shadowed paths, expanses of blue grass. He tugs Yami's arm, directs them towards the park.

Yami resists, "Where are we going?"

"The park," Yuugi states as if he is stupid. Yuugi's arm slips from his grasp, he slips, unnaturally swift, away from him and into the shadows of the unlit winter greenery. The light glow of Yuugi's pale skin, the virgin snow of his kimono patterned with inhuman intricacies, vanishes into the windy darkness.

"Yuugi," Yami calls after him, irritated at the diversion, angry at himself for feeling the familiar pang of fear. Fear of Yuugi vanishing for good on a divine whim. Yami chases after him.

Half-frozen grass crunches under his feet when he strays from the path. He doubts Yuugi has followed any man-made paths, and so weaves uncertainly between the black bark of tree trunks, low bushes whose evergreen leaves shiver like loose balls of dry paper when he brushes past them. Alone in the night, again, he wishes that his heart could have demanded a different path of him than this ever uncertain one, this steep flight of never ending steps towards a higher level he cannot reach. But he cannot turn back now, thorns have grown behind him, where his feet once fell, and to turn back would be to wade through those thorns, where he would fall out at the end shredded and bleeding and barely alive, if he reached the end at all.

Sometimes, when Yuugi goes missing, Yami will find a large white and purple flower that looks something like a lily or a lotus that he cups in both hands, for it is perhaps a little larger than both his hands, and brings it to his lips, feels the petals like vivacious satin flesh against his partially open mouth. Cradling it like a precious child, he lets the scent of it, the scent of lavender and jasmine and vanilla honey overwhelm him. It is a divine scent. Sometimes he will float the flower on the surface of a glass bowl of clear water and watch as the liquid becomes something luminescent, something like light, pale blue and golden, a low sun bathing in a stream or river or ocean.

Yami believes the flower is Yuugi. He likes to think that this is what the lost God does when he wishes to rest, to sleep. For though he has no evidence of this, he has become ever more attuned to the presence, the workings, of divinity, and everything about the blossom (even the very fact of its existence) seems to sing of Yuugi.

He stops by a trickling, manmade waterfall, barely waist height and thin enough to be a braid of blue, black, silver hair. It falls into a small pond by his feet, sends ripples in shivering rings out to the edges. The November winds disturb it; the night frost is beginning to choke it. Yami breaths out and looks around him, slowly, lets the night come to him instead. He searches for signs of Yuugi, because Yuugi cannot seem to go anywhere or do anything that is normal. Strange things happen around him that cannot quite be explained, it took Yami only a handful of weeks to realise Yuugi wasn't human. It took him only a few days more to start seeing things as they were, as humans without pure sight could not. Gods were weak now, made more like shadows through the ever-lessening belief in man; you had to believe they were there before you could see them.

Something catches his eye as his gaze passes a leafless tree, its low branches like dead fingers. A light bursts into sudden violent life; it flares uncontrollably for a moment, then retreats, curls back like a pacified cat to the affectionate hand of its owner. Yami moves towards it, pushes the dead fingers of the tree out of the way, reveals a clearing reached by a single narrow path, popular, he knows, to teenagers and couples. It is empty at this time in the morning, however. Yuugi is standing just off-centre in the large not quite circular clearing, his head turns from the contemplation of a small shrine when Yami steps into view. He smiles. The smile makes Yami's stomach flip.

Yuugi knew Yami would find him, of course. He always does.

As Yami walks towards him, Yuugi's eyes lower to the small sphere of fire floating above his raised palm. His gaze seems to travel much farther than the short distance between his eyes and hand. His smile turns small, sad.

"Forgive me. It is no longer as easy to control _Inferno_ as it once was. The fire has always had a life of its own."

A month ago, Yami would not have heard the word _Inferno_ as a word, but as a mysterious, impossible sound. Now his ears can hear the divine as well as his eyes can see them. Yami reaches Yuugi, stands in front of him, and, not knowing what he is doing, raises his hands and cups Yuugi's like he would hold the beautiful flower he sometimes finds. The flame of _Inferno_ dies, slowly dissolving into the air. Shadows rush back to embrace them, but the waning moon and the steadily lightening sky prevents complete darkness.

They stand awkwardly for another moment. Yami is not sure what to make of the tension between them. It is an almost palpable thing, but not one of malice. They are stood just a little too close, their hands touching, skin on ethereal skin.

Yuugi's eyes fall closed, before he turns his gaze to contemplate the shrine again. His head tilts as if unsure of his own thoughts. He feels Yami follow his gaze. The shrine is a small affair, an old almost antique of grey-blue stone turned a nostalgic green by creeping mosses. It is little more than a carved statue, reaching as tall as their knees, its face and inscriptions worn down by acidic city rain and the little clinging fronds of vegetation. No one has tended it for a long time, not even the echo scent of lingering incense remains in the damp of the stone.

"Does it upset you?"

Yuugi hears Yami's question and smiles again. The bitter smile is filled with love. "No," he replies, "but it does sadden me, somewhat. Life must move on, even as we slowly die."

Yami shakes his head and says earnestly, "You won't die."

Yuugi graces him with a look of intrigue, of light amusement, "I suppose you would know. Well, we will watch as we slowly fade into shadow, echoes of our own existence, one way or another."

Yami's grip on his hands tighten, Yuugi wonders if, at last, something will happen. He knows something should happen between them, or that something will happen one day, he feels it like he feels the movement of the sun. But despite all the time he has spent in human company, wandering among them, watching them, he does not understand them as well as Yami thinks he does. He knows things no human can, but human knowledge evades him, their science, their numbers, their need to unravel the meaningless enigma of existence. It all looks like the impossible workings of ants, to him.

But, whatever was supposed to happen does not, and instead Yami says: "We should go home, Yuugi. It's nearly morning. I can warm some miso soup and then we can rest, I'll call in sick or something."

He lightly pulls Yuugi's hands, tries to coax him into walking. Yuugi is stubborn. This feels right. Something… something about this, this right here, right now, feels right. He tugs back. Yami, when he tries to move again, finds his feet have been rooted to the floor.

Yuugi steps into his arms, presses his hands lightly down on his chest, looks up at him with eyes of intense, glittering starlight. His lips part when he speaks, and reminds Yami of soft plums, ripe and sweet (he wonders if Yuugi has bewitched him, for all he knows that could be one of a God's powers).

"Yami," Yuugi says, and his voice touches Yami's skin like falling rain, "please. I do not know what this is. I don't know what to do. Show me. Help me."

There is nothing left to say now. He is helpless, they are both helpless. And so Yami licks his lips, enraptured by Yuugi's innocent lust, and finds his arms have wrapped themselves around Yuugi's waist and tightened, pressing them together. He is surprised by how delicate Yuugi's body feels, and though he knows that Yuugi is more than capable of defending himself, he wants to take the little God and wrap him up in silks, satins, fine velvet to keep him safe.

He presses his lips to Yuugi's forehead, briefly. When he pulls away Yuugi tilts his face up, stays still, trembles slightly when Yami draws close, their lips barely touching, a shadow-touch. His thin white fingers press down on Yami's shoulders, insistent, impatient. He wants this. Yami can barely breathe, god how he wants this too.

Then, and neither is sure when it began, they are kissing. Long, languid movements defined by lips that tremble with uncertainty, with elation, with disbelief. Yuugi does not know what to do, so he lets Yami show him, and copies, mimicking delightedly this new sensation. The elaborate markings on Yuugi's skin dance like birds on water, he glows. His small hands lift, clasp together at the back of Yami's neck, and every hair on the human's body stands on end, charged with the lightning that sparks from the God's fingers. Yami's mouth is cool and soft, Yuugi _hmms_ in pleasure, each new sensation a diamond drop that sends the ocean of his soul tipping with waves. His human is beautiful, Yuugi knows, Yami is defined lines and curves of ruby and gold and jet, the perfect creation of royal sculptors and jewellers. He wants to take him away and keep him forever, remove him from the ticking clock of the mortal coil as if he is a fully formed butterfly trapped in its own cocoon, Yuugi wants to break it open and see his beloved's wings unfurl in the sunlight, new and damp and glistening with splendour.

November wind swirls and bites, spreading the frost even as the yellow winter sun begins to rise. Yuugi feels Yami cling to him, like a lost man clinging to his last precious memory, and curls up flush against him. Yami is impossible, incredible, stubborn and confusing, but he is everything Yuugi finds himself wanting, now, in the days where there is nothing left to want. He is the starlight that guides Yuugi back to a path of purpose.

When their kiss breaks, Yami hears Yuugi make a peculiar sound of protest, a soft mewling whimper that makes him shiver with desire. But he must breathe. So he stands, clutching a flushed, panting God to his chest, and rests his forehead on Yuugi's hair, breathing his scent (the scent of the luminescent flower) as he catches his breath. They stand in serene silence.

Then, Yuugi pulls back a little to look at him. Pauses. Then, eyes wide with something like shock, laughs. He laughs, the silver sound joining with the disturbed jangles of the tiny golden bells in his hair ornament, and laughs, as if he cannot believe what he is seeing.

Yami, confused, looks at him. Then, feeling self-conscious raises his hand in a purely human gesture of discomfort to see if there is anything wrong with his face. His fingers touch his still tingling lips, then pull away sharply, for something has caught his eye.

The skin of his hand is painted with ink. Painted in a crimson, almost purple ink that looks a little like a henna tattoo is living and breathing on his flesh, an enigma of a colour.

Having raised his hand he sees he is no longer wearing his jacket and jeans, but an impossibly black kimono stitched with red and gold silk in patterns too complex for any human hand. The amethyst ribbon that trailed from Yuugi's wrists now does not end, but, instead, has doubled in length and loops around and turns slowly into a royal red that curls itself around Yami, framing him like it does Yuugi.

Silent, slow, deliberate, he sees and examines each obvious change while Yuugi watches, his eyes alight. Eventually Yami returns Yuugi's look, not afraid but perplexed.

Then Yuugi laughs again, it is a joyous yet cautious laugh, as if he is not sure what he should be doing at all.

"Dusk and Dawn," he says, "One steps towards darkness, while the other strides on to light. Extraordinary! A mortal God! Of course, you will not be mortal anymore, but you will still think like one, and the others are likely to use it as your title."

It is a few moments more before Yami can find his voice, "A God?"

Through a large grin, Yuugi says, "Indeed."

"Me? A God?"

"Do you feel like a God?" Yuugi asks, his eyes sparkling.

Yami pauses for a moment, flounders hopelessly in the privacy of his mind, "No? Yes? I, um, don't know. I feel different, I suppose."

Yuugi nods, "Then you are."

"But I just said – "

"Not knowing what you are, exactly, is all part of it. None of us know anymore. Ah, my beloved Dusk, I shall prove it to you, as your still human mind desires it."

Yuugi takes his hands, cups them as Yami did to his just minutes before, faces his palms upwards. Yuugi whispers something. Yami feels that slight jitter in reality again, that same CD skip, and suddenly the world has been bathed in sepia. Everything freezes, as if they are the only live, coloured things in a great golden-hued photograph.

"Where are we?"

Yuugi gives him a patient smile, "In exactly the same place. We have simply shifted into… what is it called? I'm not sure it has a name. We nicknamed it the _Divine Space_. God's constantly reside half here, half in the ordinary space."

"Does time even pass here?"

Yuugi shrugs, "Yes. And no. Time is irrelevant. Now, look at your palm."

Yami reluctantly tears his gaze away from the amber dyed grass and does as Yuugi asks.

"Think of the greenery of the Earth, and say _Bloom_. You will be able to speak the celestial words now and not just hear them."

Yami wants to stop a moment to take all of this in, he wants to pause and move slowly through this strange new place, but Yuugi is insistent, and Yami realises he has eternity now to take things slowly. He bites the inside of his lip nervously, but brings to the front of his mind thoughts of bright, colourful springs and hot, green summers, images of autumn leaves and winter snowdrops. He holds them there, flows between them on the river of time oblivious to its tugging currents, and then he opens his mouth to speak.

"_Bloom_."

Something flowers open inside his chest even as a large flower bursts into life in his palms. Colour explodes like a firework inside him and the flower unfurls with strange words spoken in the God's tongue. He hears them and finds, suddenly, that he knows them. Yami stares openly at the flower in his hands. It is like the one he attributes to Yuugi, a hybrid of the lotus and lily, but of entirely different colours. The flesh of the petals is thick and velvety, the bright yellow middle thrums with mysterious life, but it is not white and purple. It is black and red. It is, he knows inexplicably, an extension of himself.

He looks up, sees Yuugi watching him. The open love there stuns him for a moment, before a kiss, chaste and devastatingly sweet, is pressed against his partially open lips. The sensation of it is so intense he almost whimpers when Yuugi pulls away.

"We are two halves of a whole, it seems." Yuugi says, he is so close, still, that the breath of his words skate over Yami's skin and make him shiver. He leans closer again and rests his forehead against Yuugi's, feels the extraordinary echoes his mind gives out. He wonder's if his mind does the same now.

"Will my mind… you said it was still human, will it change?"

"Yes. Slowly. Eventually."

Yami is not sure what he thinks of that; he quite likes his mind as it is. He wonders how it will change him, before deciding it doesn't really matter anyway. He closes his eyes and relaxes, then folds his palms. The flower folds gracefully into his hands, vanishes into the charged air he creates with the action. He breathes out. Then loosens his grip and pulls Yuugi's body to his again, no longer able to resist. Kissing him openly, almost roughly. He feels that jitter, and the sepia tint melts into earthly colours, time moves as if it never stopped. Which, Yami thinks, is probably true, since he has the distinct impression that they slipped into a place that is not touched by time.

Yuugi's fingers curl around his jaw, touching him with gentle fascination. Them being together like this is so surreal that Yami fears Yuugi has drugged him in his strange innocent way, but the kiss is so real, and this dance so impossible, that it can be nothing but real. The silver belled ornaments in his hair, the mirror of Yuugi's golden ones, ring lightly when they move, the gold and silver music mixes to make a morning of electrum.

Yami wonders why he is so calm. By all rights this should be overwhelming him. Undoing him. But it doesn't, and it isn't. Something within him has shifted.

When Yuugi pulls away again he feels as if half his heart pulls away with him. Yuugi sighs, smiles, whispers to him.

"You do not mind this?

Yami cannot help but smile, "I choose to be this way, just as I chose to love you."

Yuugi's smile grows wider, "You choose quickly."

Yami laughs a little, "It wasn't like I had much choice anyway, not since my heart is no longer my own."

The sun is rising in earnest now, the birds are waking quickly, their cries becoming louder in symphony and rising into the air like heat waves.

Yuugi tilts his head, "Perhaps we should go home now?"

But Yami, much to his surprise, to his bemusement, finds he feels no desire, no need, to return to his (_their_) apartment. His home is no longer a collection of straight painted walls and ceilings, but wherever he wishes it to be. The whole rolling landscape feels like home. He now understands why Yuugi never understood why Yami wished to keep him there.

So, instead, he shakes his head at the irony and asks, "Do you want to go to the apartment?"

A playful look flitters over Yuugi's face, "Perhaps."

"No, you don't," Yami leans in to brush their noses together, the action makes Yuugi laugh again, gently, at the pure sweetness behind the gesture, "And, frankly, I wouldn't care if we never saw it again. However, I am tired."

Yuugi brushes a shadow kiss over his lips, Yami's grip tightens on his hips, "Then we should rest."

As he speaks, water rises from the small pond Yami passed on his way, the whites of Yuugi's eyes glow a faint pale blue. Yami lets Yuugi lead him gently to the water, watches as it climbs in thin tendrils like ivy, white foam like leaves, up their bodies. Yuugi turns to look at him, and he knows what he must do.

"_Bloom_."

The rising sun, encroaching on the night, sapping away the darkness even as it creates shadows, begins to warm the day. The clear sky is bleached a buttermilk blue, shot through with golden ladders that lead to the heavens. Its light touches the crossroads, where the traffic light has recovered miraculously and is now travelling between all three colours. It reaches the park, blanketed in frost, turns the blue grass green again. It climbs up the naked trees, the little hillocks and finally reaches the little pond, rimmed on the outside by a thin layer of ice. The yellow light bathes and warms the pair of flowers, like water lilies and eternal lotuses, that float in the centre, riding the gentle ripples caused by the waterfall. The light caresses the exotically coloured petals that seem half intertwined with each other, and the faintly glowing yellow centres. One is black and red, one white and purple. Soon the water seems to turn luminescent, the waterfall blessed with healthy flow despite the ice.

They sleep, together. Not as they were, but as they are.

-

**AN:** Finally done! This bunny had been eating me for weeks and it feels good to be rid of it! Well, I hope you liked it, and I wonder if anyone picked up on the few tie-ins with Okami. I was inspired by many of the Godly Attribute things of that game, so I have to give it some credit for giving me this bunny! I always love to know what you think so:

**Review Please!**


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